


The Lonely Young Man

by YourGoodGoodWritingFriend



Series: The Wisheton Anthology [1]
Category: Faerie Folklore, Fairytale - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Deals, Faeries - Freeform, Gen, fae lore, fairytale, literally my first ever work posted here, who knows not me, why did i decide to make my first work an original fairytale???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourGoodGoodWritingFriend/pseuds/YourGoodGoodWritingFriend
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a young man who decided to do something very foolish.An original fairytale written as worldbuilding for my tentative story anthology.
Series: The Wisheton Anthology [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016989
Comments: 3
Kudos: 1





	The Lonely Young Man

**Author's Note:**

> ok so i have a)) never posted on ao3 before, b)) never posted an original work anywhere before, and c)) written a fairytale that i am very proud of :)  
> if you are nice to me in the comments i will love you forever :)

Once upon a time, there lived a young man in the middle of the woods. He had grown up there, with his parents in a little house surrounded on all sides by thick trunks and fallen leaves. For a long time he was happy, but when he was no longer a boy his parents both died, and he was left alone. He had never left the woods and he did not know the way, so he stayed in his little house all by himself and grew desperately lonely. After five years he was so lonely that he decided to do something very foolish. He laid a trap for a fae.  
He took the most beautiful of his mother’s flowers and planted them in a circle at the very edge of the woods, so that the fairy would be able to enter. He took all of his father’s iron tools and hid them beneath the flowers until there were no gaps in the ring, so that the fairy would be trapped. He placed a cupful of honey on the ground and turned his coat inside out so that the fairy would not be able to see him.  
For three days and three nights he waited hidden by his trap without luck. Finally, at dawn on the fourth day of his vigil, a young fae-girl appeared within the ring. The young man leapt up in delight and pulled off his coat. When she saw the human standing by the ring, the fae-girl tried to run away, but found she was trapped within.  
“Fine,” she said crossly, “You have trapped me. What is it that you want?”  
The young man eagerly replied with the words he had practiced all night. “I wish to make a deal with you.”  
“What do you desire?” Asked the fae-girl, looking interested.  
The young man spoke carefully. “I will release you from the ring and in return you will grant me three requests.”  
“I will grant you three requests to the best of my ability, as long as they do not cause me or any other fae harm, and if you do any harm to me or any other fae our contract is void.” The fae-girl countered.  
“Very well,” said the young man, “but if you or any other fae harm me, you will be banned from my home for all time.”  
They shook hands and the young man removed an iron nail from the ring, allowing the fae-girl to step out. And he gave her the honey and she drank it.  
“What are your requests?” She asked.  
“I want only one granted now. I ask that you stay here with me forever. You will have anything you ask of me and I will not harm you, so this desire does not break our contract. You drank my honey, therefore you are my guest and may not harm me to get out of our deal.” The young man replied, proud of himself for tricking a fae.  
The fae-girl’s face darkened as she realized what he had done. “Forever is a fickle thing, and one day you will die. Would you have me buried in an iron tomb with you? I will stay here with you until the day you die and not a moment after.”  
“Very well.”  
So the fae-girl stayed with the young man. He was no longer alone, but she refused to speak to him, and would stare out at the forest with a wistful look in her shimmering eyes. After seven years of coldness, he came to her and told her his second request.  
“I ask that you no longer be unhappy with me. I will make you whatever you desire as long as you smile and speak with me, for the nights are long.”  
“I am fae and cannot lie, but if you make for me a loom, I will speak to you in the evenings while I weave.”  
“Very well.”  
So the man made her a sturdy loom, and she smiled as she wove dresses and blankets and many beautiful things on it while they spoke together in the evenings.  
For many years the two lived together in the little house in the middle of the wood. The man was happy for he was no longer alone, and as he grew old he never made his third request. The fae-girl smiled when she wove and spoke with him and never left his side.  
Finally, the man had become old, and he was close to death. As he lay in his bed, warm beneath the blankets the fae-girl had made, he saw that she was smiling at him. He was shocked, for in all the years they had spent together she looked at him only with sadness or rage.  
“Why are you smiling at me?” asked the old man in a voice weak with age.  
“I am smiling because soon I will be able to be happy again.” She replied, her voice as youthful as the day they met.  
“Have you not been happy with me? I made you a loom, and I have always been kind to you.”  
“You asked that I stay here with you, and I have not seen another fae since. You have made me very lonely.”  
At last the old man saw what he had done. In his loneliness he had wanted someone by his side, and in binding the fae-girl to himself he had passed the aching solitude onto her. In sorrow and horror at what he had done, he cried out, “Very well then! My last request is that you never let me make you unhappy again!” As he finished speaking, he felt his strength failing.  
“Do not worry,” said the fae-girl, laughing, “your power over me has faded with your life. The thought of you will never bother me again.”  
And when he died she did not mourn him, but she returned to her home with the fairies, where she danced and sang and did not remember the once-young man. And the little house in the middle of the wood rotted away, until it was as if it was never there at all.


End file.
